Hampton, Iowa, had a YMCA a block off the main drag and the Christian church next door managed the renting of double rooms there for young men of Christian heritage and seriously representative of clean-living standards. They furnished coffee and apple juice and hard-boiled eggs every morning and at night, the amiable capable mountain of a woman who could cook anything she could catch or find, prepared a hearty soup or stew and sometimes even a cobbler when peaches or apples were in season. For all this, Daniel paid a percentage of his hourly wages which, in his case, amounted to sixty dollars a month, including meals. He had to provide laundry soap for his bed linens and clothing and, of course, quarters for the machines at the laundromat around the corner. Daniel lived in a room alone for about six months then Hampton suddenly got busier than ever, and he found himself with a roommate named Franklin Thompson, a gregarious, cheerful, overweight African American who laughed all the time, even when nothing was funny.
